


Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

by VictoryanBladeFair



Series: For those who have an unknown past and an uncertain future [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers - Freeform, Avengers Tower, Avengers/OFC - Freeform, Avengers/Original Female Character, Black Widow - Freeform, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton is awesome, Complex Plot, Everyone needs a hug sometimes, F/M, Gen, Hawkeye - Freeform, Hydra, Hydra (Marvel), Loki - Freeform, Marvel fandom, My First Work in This Fandom, Natasha Romanoff - Freeform, OFC & Avengers Team - Freeform, OFC & SHIELD Agents and staff - Freeform, OMG SO MANY TAGS TO PUT, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Original Female Character, Philip Coulson - Freeform, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Iron Man 2, SHIELD, Steve Rogers is a cutie pie, Thor - Freeform, Thor: The Dark World, Work In Progress, captain america just woke up, clint barton - Freeform, first fic here, help hope you like it, love and friendship - Freeform, so complex I don't how how the story unfolds, steve rogers - Freeform, there is blood, to feel or not to feel, tony stark - Freeform, warning: loads of sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoryanBladeFair/pseuds/VictoryanBladeFair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you seek peace, prepare for war"</p><p>It was just a mission at first, like any other, but it didn't go as planned. How hard could it be to play Double Agent?</p><hr/><p><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/381853"><i>For those who have an unknown past and an uncertain future</i></a> Series:<br/>Part 1: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5382290">The Winter Soldier and The Arctic Fox</a><br/>Part 2: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3920929"> Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum</a><br/>Part 3: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/9080401">Dulce Bellum Inexpertis</a><br/>Part 4: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/10663497">Amor Arma Ministrat</a><br/>Part 5: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/11160228/chapters/24906291">Peace is just a Temporary State of War</a><br/>Spin-Off: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/11000586/chapters/24504552">Mommy's Letters to Baby America (Spin-Off)</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Main Mission

**Author's Note:**

> **Attention beuties!** I've created a sideblog on Tumblr dedicated to your questions and updates, so it's easier to communicate (: You can find it here -- > [_VictoryanBladeFair_](http://victoryanbladefair.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> Part 3 of this series is out! Dulce Bellum Inexpertis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, sorry for the crappy summary, but I really didn't know what to write ahah anyways, English isn't my native language, so if there are some errors or bad description, please write below in the comments so I can edit it!
> 
> Thank you and enjoy the first chapter! :D

Here I am. On my way to get infiltrated into S.H.I.E.L.D., the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. 

I remembered HYDRA's orders. _"Many of ours infiltrated in almost all of SHIELD bases, but you have to get to its heart. Become one of their best and most trusted agents. From this point on, you are alone. Everything you choose to do, do it in the name of HYDRA. Heil HYDRA!"_

Before the whole thing started I had to get myself caught on spot.

_"Stop right there! Hands up!" Some agents handcuffed me and dragged me outside the house I had murdered a powerful couple known to have killed many children._  
_An agent approached me and looked me in the eyes lifting my chin up. He saw that I was crying and his voice softened noticing my young age. "How old are you?" He asked me, but I lowered my head, refusing to answer. "No harm will be done to you if you cooperate."_  
_Then I broke my silence and locked again my hazel eyes with his. "Will you interrogate me?" My voice trembled. "I'll tell you anything you want to know if you help me get away from the bad people that made me do this..." He just nodded and I was brought away._

I was sitting in a small room with a mirror wall in front of me, my wrists handcuffed to a table and about to get interrogated by the man that I've met when I got caught. To make a scene, I was still crying, but none of my feelings were real. I was trained to be lethal and keep my emotions locked up.

He entered the room and unbuttoned his jacket, then sat at the table in front of me. "My name is Philip Coulson." His voice wasn't menacing, as I expected. "Let's start from the beginning." He then got closer and took off the handcuffs around my wrists, which I massaged a little and wiped the tears off my face with my fingers.

I cleared my throat and looked at him. "I'm Viktoria Alkaeva, but I don't exist, actually." My Russian accent sounded a little more rougher because of so much crying.

"Why did you kill Miguel Cedar and his wife?"

I sighed. "I was hired to work for them and got ordered to keep safe their carriage during the transport, but..." I paused. "Their carriage were children, and I couldn't let them do it, those kids would be dead or else by now. I got carried away by my feelings because I know how wrong was what they were doing."

He nodded. "We were on their tracks for months. We wanted to capture them, alive. But what's done, it's done. I think you might want to know that almost all of the children returned to their families, some others were orphans."

I smiled a little. "Yes, I'm glad they got their future back."

"Viktoria, who are the bad people you mentioned before?" He asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I was raised to be an assassin and to follow orders, but I don't know whose. I never met them."

"But who trained you?"

"An old man, his name was Dmitri. He got killed during a mission four years ago." Coulson seemed to believe my words, so I continued. "That man raised me." As I had imagined, they wanted to dig into my past, so I carefully studied the past of some deceased criminals and this man, Dmitri, was the one less known to secret organizations.

He leaned forward on his chair and placed his elbows on the table. "How old were you when he died?" He studied my appearance, how I had my long brown hair tied tightly in a ponytail, no makeup on my pale face, my hazel eyes reddened by my tears and cheeks flushed. Height between 175 and 177.5cm (5'9"-5'10") and weight about 68.04kg (150lb), strong muscles thought the hands don't seems the ones of a fighter.

"Only thirteen. But I took care of myself. I was prepared for any kind of problem. I don't remember anything of my past. No family, no relatives, no place to stay, nothing. I'm alone." My last words were true. "What'll happen to me now? Am I under arrest? Because, I can't go out there, not after what I've done. I don't know the people who did this to me and I don't know if they'll send someone to kill me." I started crying again. "At this point it doesn't matter, I don't exist anyway."

He was shocked. How could I even say that, he thought. "No, you matter. You exist, you're here in front of me. Don't say that your life isn't worth-"

I raised my voice interrupting him. "And all the lives I took, all the blood on my hands? What about that? I don't deserve mine."

"You asked for my help and I'll do whatever I can to keep you safe."

 

After a couple of months, I was living in an apartment in New York, near a SHIELD base. I was given a new identity, but I refused it. I've said that I didn't want to give up on my name because it was the only thing that I had, so Nick Fury, Coulson's chief, forced me to choose between a new identity or take Coulson's last name. And of course I chose the second one, becoming Viktoria A. Coulson.

Someone knocked on my door and I placed my right hand behind my back, gripping tightly the gun I was keeping between my jeans and my hoodie, ready to take it out just in case. I approached slowly the door and just before I reached the handle, I heard agent Coulson's voice.

"Aren't you going to shoot me, are you?" I sighed, relieved that it wasn't anyone else.

I opened the door and smiled. "I'm not, don't worry. Come in." I gestured for him to enter my apartment. We sat in the living room.

"Are you comfortable here?" He asked with a smile on his lips.

"Yeah." I nodded lightly.

"But..?"

I looked him in the eyes. "But I don't want a normal life, I want to work for SHIELD." I saw the concerned look the gave me. "I owe you my life, besides, I'm not capable of doing anything else but espionage and fighting."

"I see." He said after a while. "This is mainly the reason I came here. I'll be your Supervising Officer, S.O. By Fury's orders, I'll make sure you become one of our best agents."

"Thank you, Coulson."

"We can already skip to lesson two."

I furrowed my brow. "How so?" I asked curiously.

"Lesson one consists in being always careful when you think danger is approaching, which leads to lesson two: you should be in hand-to hand combat before gripping your gun." He explained while I listened carefully. Yeah, well, that's not what life taught me; if my life is in danger, better take out the enemy before he takes out you. "What happened to your Russian accent?" He was curious since it was the first time he heard me speak like I was American.

"Oh, well, since I'm a Coulson now, I should speak the way my relative speaks. Right? Besides, what kind of relationship has he given us, Director Fury?"

"You're my long lost daughter, but..." He paused, not sure how to continue.

I furrowed my brow. "Lemme guess, we should keep it secret anyways, yeah?" That man, Fury, complicates lies with more lies.

He just nodded, maybe he wasn't even happy with that, but he promised that he'd help me, and that was just what I needed, a perfect coverage. "So, hello daughter."

I chuckled. "Yo, father."

He raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Tell me the truth, were you watching tv all day to learn?"

I chuckled. "Maybe just a couple of tv shows, on repeat."

First step of the mission: infiltration complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hope you liked the first chapter (:
> 
> Comments are very supportive so let me know what you think about it and, maybe, leave a kudo ^^
> 
> Any resemblance to real events and/or real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. I don't own Marvel characters or story, just my OFC and the plot.


	2. The Widow and the Hawk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a couple of months of training with agent Coulson, Viktoria meets agents Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton.
> 
> First impressions? Agents worth their titles.

One early morning I was walking alongside Coulson in SHIELD's base, while he checked some stuff written in a yellow file he held in his hands. I finally got my SHIELD pass card, or however they called it. I was wearing a black training outfit, the card stuck to my skin-tight tank top, trousers stretchy enough for any kind of hand to hand combat. As I walked, my long brown hair held in a high ponytail moved from side to side, brushing lightly my shoulders.

"...Viktoria?" I was startled when Coulson called my name.

I stopped walking and turned to my left to look at him. "Huh?" When I noticed that he wasn't beside me, I turned on my feet and saw him standing a few steps behind me. "Sorry, I got carried away by my thoughts."

He shook his head slightly almost saying 'never mind'. "I'll take you to the shooting camp, there's someone that'll help you practice."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you leaving on a mission?"

"Yes, that's why I asked someone to tutor you while I'm away." We started walking again, headed to the lower level of the base.

  
  


As silence filled the space during the trip in the elevator, a question popped in my head. "So, who's my temporary tutor?" Just then the elevator's doors opened with a ding and I heard some gunshots in the distance.

We proceeded towards the fire-range where a woman in a cat-suit with wavy long red hair was standing, in shooting stance, emptying an automatic gun's magazine. When she lowered the gun, I noticed that all the bullets shot hit just one spot on the bulls-eye. She took off the protective googles from her eyes and the earplugs. "Agent Coulson," she said without even turning around to look at him. After she dismantled the gun, she looked at us, placing her green eyes on my hazel ones.

  
  


"Agent Romanoff, this is Viktoria A. Coulson." He introduced me to her.

"Call me Natasha." We shook our hands. She was about 160cm (5'3") and she had to raise her head to look me in the eyes. "What does the 'A' stand for?" She asked out of nowhere.

"Like the first letter of the alphabet." I replied too soon before Phil could say anything, to which he just elbowed me. "What?" I retorted glaring at him. The gesture seemed very like a father and daughter thing, I thought.

"I like her," Natasha said nodding her head while checking me from head to toe. "Come now, Viktoria, we have a lot of work to do."

Coulson smiled at agent Romanoff and then to me. "Good. Just remember, follow agent Romanoff's orders and don't get yourself in trouble."

I laughed almost ironically. "And by 'trouble' what d'ya exactly mean?" I gave him a soft smack on the shoulder and walked towards Natasha. "Don't worry, agent Coulson, I'll behave."

"Okay then, see you in a couple of days."

We were left to our training and instead of heading directly to the shooting stance, she brought me to a room where a couple of different guns were exposed on a table. I spotted a black semi-automatic handgun.

She stood on the opposite side of the table and pointed to the black one at the center. "This..."

"Is a semi-automatic 9x19mm Parabellum." I didn't know if it annoyed her that I spoke, interrupting, but then she pointed to some other guns and looked at me, waiting for answers. In order, I named all the guns. "9x29mm Winchester Magnum, 9x18mm Makarov, 9x18mm Ultra, 38 Short Colt and..." I tilted my head when I didn't recognize the last one, so I guessed, "A SHIELD developed semi-automatic?"

Natasha nodded. "This is a Night-Night Gun, it puts foes to 'sleep', gives you the time to do anything you need to do." She moved her right hand and grabbed the Parabellum. "Before we start your shooting training, I'm gonna teach you how to maintain your weapons." After checking if the gun was loaded, which wasn't, Natasha put down the gun and looked me straight in the eyes. "Disassemble and assemble it, I'm going to keep the time."

 _"Seriously thought, how much did Coulson tell her? I thought he at least told her that I knew how to handle a gun."_ Five months after I became his 'daughter' and he still thought of me as a 17-years-old girl who needed practice with this kind of things. But I didn't object because I didn't want to get on a bad side. _"Show that you can learn quickly, but not too quickly, show that you know things, but not too many,"_ I reminded myself.

"When you're ready." She said, carefully looking at me while holding a timer. She probably took it from somewhere on the table, as I hadn't notice it before.  
  
I took the gun and closed my eyes, feeling the cold metal with my fingers. "Ready." With my hazel eyes still closed, I kept the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, treating the firearm as if it was loaded, then ejected the magazine and pulled the slide back and stuck a finger in it to check that there weren't any cartridges in the chamber. I de-cocked (released) the hammer, pulled the take down tabs and after a pull toward the rear of the frame, the slide moved freely off the front of the handgun. Aligning the parts of the handgun in front of me on the table, I opened my eyes. "Time?"

"Thirty-five seconds. Now put it back together."

 _"Five seconds more of my average time, huh? Should do better next time."_ I proceeded to assemble it and waited for her to tell me the time again.  
  
"Thirty seconds." A little smirk appeared on her rose lips. "Good, and with your eyes closed... I wonder if..." She tilting her head aside, her wavy red hair moved to rest on one shoulder, while she thought of something.

 _"She's analyzing me."_ The Black Widow. HYDRA told me to beware of this woman since she could find out anything she wanted to know. _She might be a good liar, but I'm a better one._ Fact is, I knew everything about her past, even things not known to SHIELD.

"Yeah, Nat, a very good time." A voice came from above us and someone jumped down from the ceiling. Startled, I turned to look at the tall man that came out of nowhere. 

  
  


Noticing my confusion, the brown haired man just held out his hand and smiled. "Agent Clint Barton."

I shook his hand and glanced back at Natasha. "I'm Viktoria Coulson."

"Where did the 'A' go?" The woman asked, jokingly.

"Did you just jump out of the vents, agent Barton? Is this some kind of training thing?" I asked sounding nervous, ignoring that she made fun of me. I scanned quickly his appearance: muscled body, agile and pretty tall, but jut a bit taller than me, maybe around 177.5cm (5'10"). For a bow master, his blue-greyish eyes seemed to catch even the smallest flie in the air. Worth the Hawkeye code name, though I haven't seen him using one yet.

They both laughed, Natasha lightly, and walked towards him. Clint furrowed his brow. "Agent Coulson's daughter?" He asked eyes the redhead.

Nodding, she replied quietly: "Yes, but not for everyone's ears." Still, no one was around at that time.

So they knew part of the lie, but did they know the story behind it? Clearly, Fury gave precise orders to Coulson, who should know my past and who should know only that I was his daughter. A little feeling of excitment hit me, while I thought that things were going as planned. In a game of puppets, wins the puppeteer.

"...Then I'll leave you to your trainings. If you ever need to learn shooting with a bow, just gimme a whistle, Viks." He was comfortable enough to give me a nickname.

Smiling briefly, I nodded and replied: "As long as you don't jump out of the vents, then I'll whistle."

Months of hard training awaited me with these two, but soon enough, maybe even a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, another chapter which I hope you liked :D
> 
> I wasn't sure when I first wrote it, but I think I like it now. The parts in italics are her thoughts, I guess they're useful to understand her better. I looked for the actual time when you dissemble a gun but didn't find anything, so I just guessed it is possible for a person to do it in 30seconds ahah
> 
> Your first impressions on Vikoria? (:


	3. Strangers With Sins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get a sneak a peak in Viktoria's past, but here comes a mission too. How will it go?
> 
> Please, note that the things in this chapter are pure imagination and fictional, no reference to real people or true events, and if so, they're purely random.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long, but meh, inspiration takes time and imagination, right?
> 
> Any error or bad writing may happen, so if you notice, please tell me in the comments so I can fix it (:
> 
> It's pretty long. Have fun ♥

I've spent three years with Barton and Romanoff, training with them occasionally but always making good treasure of their teaching, because their skills were above anyone's else. Natasha helped me improve certain fighting techniques so, in secret, I could train different martial arts and combine them. Though my aim with a gun was perfect, I had difficulty using a bow, which Clint taught me how to, mastering it.  
For S.H.I.E.L.D. I was somehow the duo's legacy: an orphan assassin girl. That's the story they bought. I've spent over than half of a century playing HYDRA's second asset for their plans, when the first one was on cryofreeze. Since I didn't have a purpose in my life, I just achieved someone else's. Layers of lies kept me safe from both beasts in their nests, because a creature like me couldn't live in the truth.

"I know that look on your face," Natasha said, while we both got in the car, a black Jaguar. She referred to my amused expression.

I passed from smiling to laughing after a quick glance at her raised brow. "If you see me smiling it's because I'm thinking of doing something evil or naughty. If you see me laughing it's because I've already done it."

She shook her head. "Don't tell me, payback on Clint?"

"Well, I declared war when he played a prank at me a month ago with the mayonnaise donut, so... I might have replaced his shaving foam with _crème pâtisserie_. You know, the flowery one I got when I baked the Spring Pie for my birthday." 

"He's gonna smell like flowers for a week at least!" Both laughing, she drove out of the parking lot of the condo I lived in while a very old song played on the radio, _When My Baby Smiles At Me_. The familiar song made appear a memory in my mind, when I first heard it.

 

_1928, Hamburg, Germany_

_I walked into an old saloon, my black leather heels ticking on the wooden floor and drawing male's attention to my grey beaded flappers short dress. I didn't care less of the looks they were giving me, so I headed straight to the counter and smiled briefly to the barman. The song playing in the background from a radio covered the whispers of the people._

_He smiled back widely and put down the glass he was drying with a cloth. "Was kann ich Ihnen bringen, mein lieber?" (What can I get you, my dear?)_

_"Die Spezialität des Hauses." (The specialty of the house.) I replied locking my hazel eyes with his brown ones. I gave a quick glance around me and saw that most of the faces weren't watching me anymore._

_The barman was fast, he took a beer glass that was lined up with others on a long shelf, filled it with dark colored beer and set it in front of me on the counter. "Das Getränk ist auf Kosten des Hauses." (The drink is on the house.)_

_I seated on one of the stools in front of the counter, crossing my legs. "Danke. Nicht viele Menschen sind so freundlich, wie Sie sind." (Thank you. Not many people are as friendly as you are.)_

_"Geniessen Sie." (Enjoy.) He left to clean around some tables._

_After a while of sitting alone, a man approached me but I didn't look at him, who just sat near me and gazed at my face, before he spoke. "лиса?" (Fox?) His voice was low, but I heard it well enough to shot him a questioning look. "Вы 'лиса' они говорят?" (Are you the 'fox' they talk about?) While he spoke in Russian, his accent screamed German._

_I turned myself a little towards him and placed my right elbow on the counter, my chin on my knuckles. "Зависит, кто хочет знать?" (Depends who wants to know?) In contrast to him, my Russian accent was perfect. He was a very young man, dark brown hair and blue eyes, not very tall but muscled body, maybe a soldier. He wore a black suit with a matching hat on his head._

_He chuckled when I asked. "Не я.Человек я работаю хочет знать." (Not me. The man I work for wants to know.) A quick glance behind us to make sure no one was listening and his eyes were back on mine. "Мы дадим вам свободу, которую вы ищете." (We will give you the freedom you seek.)_

_I nodded. "Затем возьмите меня в свой главный." (Then take me to your chief.)_

 

I was startled when Natasha waved her hand in front of my eyes. "Hey, you there? We're here." She gave a nod towards the doors of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s building in NY.

I shook my head. "Yeah, sorry... I spaced out." Her green eyes scanned my expression before we got out of the car and then entered the building, some agents I came to know through these years greeted me with a smile and I smiled back, though something was bothering me.

"Are you sure you're fine?" When we got into the main elevator, she asked me since no one was around.

"Yeah..." I replied, my voice low. "Maybe I'm just nervous. I've always worked alone on field and this thing of working on a team isn't quite..." I paused not knowing how to say it. Damn, three years and still nothing important, I was a level 5 agent, though with great results and tough training.

"Your forte?"

"Actually, I havo no idea. I'll just go with it." I blurted out when the doors of the elevator opened on my floor. "I'll see you later then... Wait, was this your floor too?" Natasha walked out, still by my side.

A little smirk appeared on her lips. "Well, seems like we got the same call..."

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm a level 5 agent!" I said a bit loudly, while keeping her pace, till we came to a door where Clint was standing, his eyes fell right on me. "Hey Clint."

"Hey Tasha." Clint said, his grey eyes glued on mine. "Alkaeva."

"Barton." He was pissed, I could see it in his posture. "You smell good."

"I knew it was you! I can't wash this fucking flowery scent off my face!"

I laughed heartly. "That's what you get when you trick someone onto eating a mayonnaise donut!"

We started arguing in front of the meeting room and Natasha shook her head and rolled her eyes, then leaned against the wall crossing her arms over her chest and just stared at Clint an me for a few minutes. Suddenly, Coulson opened the door of the conference room and looked at us with bored eyes, as if thinking 'no, guys, not here', since our silly speeches could be heard even inside.

I smiled innocently as I looked at Coulson. "We were being good kids, Agent Coulson."

"Yeah, sure." His lips curled upward and he stepped aside to let us into the room. "Come in, kids." Coulson said as he eyed the two of us, then exchanged a silent look with Natasha. "Agent Romanoff."

Greeting Coulson with a nod, Romanoff entered the room and sat down on one of the free chairs around an oval table. There was no one but us and Director Fury, who was looking out from one of the large windows that gave a view onto New York. Barton, before sitting down, hit me lightly on the arm with his left elbow and then went to sit next to Natasha, me following.

I thought to myself: _"Who knows what's going on, I thought I'd be meeting only Coulson and some other agent with whom I should serve a mission."_ In that instant he was struck by the realization of the situation. _"A mission with these two ?! That means ..."_

I sat next to Romanoff and watched as she and Barton were exchanging the mischievous smiles, obviously they already knew what it was about. Coulson did not sit down, but closed the door of the room and went to get a file from the table, on which was written 'Classified - Level 7 or above'.

Fury turned, his hands behind his back in one another, watching us for a couple of seconds. "Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton." Then his eyes, or rather his good eye, rested longer on me, scanning my expression, which at the time was passive, although I had a lot of questions that went through my mind with a little excitement for the upcoming news. Then he broke the silence. "Congratulations, Agent Alkaeva." I noticed that he spoke to me not using Philip's surname, but only with mine.

I frowned not understanding that it was about my promotion. "About what, exactly, Boss?" I asked.

He laughed. It was strange, pretty much, all the agents with whom I had spoken had told me that this man gave a self-image always cold and distant, but maybe it was because of the black clothes with his long black leather coat, maybe even the patch on the eye that made him scary. During the time I worked for SHIELD I had never met the Director, only seen very few times and hung around for the headquarters. Nick Fury was the second in command to the direction of SHIELD, the first was Alexander Pierce, I had never seen before, but I knew who he was and how the organization operated.

"You have been promoted to an Agent of level 7 clearance, Alkaeva. When you're joined SHIELD Agent Coulson had high expectations towards you. I do not usually make this talk to the agents of your type, but your results have reached those of Agent Romanoff. Besides, you can do much more than an agent of level 5. "He turned to look at Coulson and nodded his head for him to carry on.

"Thank you, Boss." I thanked him and then threw a smile to the two sitting beside me, who nodded their congratulations in silence.

Coulson gave us three identical files and we opened them, while he was speaking. "STRIKE TEAM DELTA," Coulson named Barton and Romanoff, "for this mission, a third member is added in order to take down the targets..." He moved into the room with a remote control to activate a projector, while the large window overlooking the city darkened automatically.

I gave a quick look at what was written in the file in front of me. 'Operation Cobra Dance' was written in large letters on top of a sheet filled with details of illegal activities carried out by a group called the 'Cobra Triplets'. Many of their missions included high-level assassinations, transportation and smuggling of military weapons and aiding in power of corrupt people. My heart stopped in the throat when I recognized their faces from the photos attached to the file, but did not say anything, listening to the rest Coulson had to say.

"These are the Cobra Triplets. We have been monitoring their movements for a long time and the two agents who followed them, well... They've never reported back and we presume they're dead." He paused changing slides, including images taken in secret by the missing two and then some taken by satellite. "Right now their current location is unknown, thought they were last seen in Egypt."

Clint straightened up in his chair and rested his elbows on the table, each one by the sides of the file before him. "What do we know of these three?" He asked pointing to the three people on screen.

In order, they all had a dark complexion, the first was a bald man with a tattoo of a cobra that started from the forehead and down his nape, tail tattooed around his neck, and then down along the right shoulder to the wrist. Muscular as a professional wrestler and very tall, his face suggested anything but being a friendly person, just like an African Cobra. The man in the middle had black hair, held in place by short braids along the head. Powerfully built but not muscular as the first and he had tattooed under his chin just the head of a cobra, with his jaws open and long sticking out fangs. The last was a woman with very short brown hair, a sinuous body and toned. In the picture she wore a short dress and on her left leg she also had a cobra, whose tail started from the ankle and around her leg, until arriving at the top with the head turned towards the inside of the thigh, jaws closed and a forked tongue sticking out.

Fury took place in the speech. "Gemini whose only similarity is derived from their yellow eyes and the lethality with which they kill. No one knows exactly how they fight and those who have heard their names have not lived long enough to pronounce them."

Natasha put her file on the table and sighed slightly. "In short, they're like three ghosts."

Coulson changed slide showing a place in Cairo. "They'll guard one of the most feared dictators by the Egyptian people, during his stay in Cairo, and while attending to a secret meeting with members of the Egyptian Mafia."

"You'll be sent to Cairo to collect more information and then destroy the circle of evil, if possible and by that I mean it, put out of action the triplets." Fury concluded. "The departure is scheduled in a week."

Before everyone got up to leave, I hesitated and then decided to speak, carefully choosing the right words to not say more than what was necessary. "Sir, there's something you should know."

I caught the attention of the boss and the other three in the room, who stopped to listen. "Is there a problem, Agent Alkaeva?"

I sighed and shook his head slightly. "When I was on my own, before entering SHIELD," at this point I imagined that both Barton and Romanoff knew who I was before now, "the people who were maneuvering me, made me become a mercenary in the service of a man who smuggled people for human traffic..." It took me a knot in my stomach when I remembered how things really went. HYDRA had instructed me to trace the triplets and persuade them into joining the organization, even if the meeting had gone wrong and I was barely able to stand after the clash, though I did more harm to them than they did to me. "The man who I had to protect was killed by the one with the tattooed cobra on the head, while the other two had appropriated the goods after making out all the henchmen."

Fury's face was filled with what looked like anger, his brow furrowed. "And only now you're tellin' us? What else do you know?"

I put the file on the table and pulled out the photos of the three. "This here," I pointed to the one that looked like a wrestler, "is called Louai Shamoon and is the older brother, the second man and the woman are Adel Shamoon and Oseye Shamoon. The cobra, as you have noted, is the symbol of their union. The fighting style is based on the 'dance' of these snakes, which are used to disorient the preys and then take them by surprise. It's a mixture of tribal moves incorporated with the agility of these snakes. If are surrounded by enemies, they get positioned back to back to form a triangle, they call it 'three-headed cobra', in order to observe the enemies on all sides and coordinate themselves to take down foes."

"That's all?" Coulson asked, as she crossed her arms.

I tilted my head feeling a subtle vibration of distress. "I haven't seen them using weapons, though, they could be using anything now. It's been years after all."

"Well," sighed Fury, his hands behind his back again, "thanks to the information you have provided, agent Alkaeva, we can dig deeper into this stuff. Until then, be prepared to leave." Having said that, he left the conference room.

Natasha and Clint greeted me hastily because they had work to do and I was left with Coulson, with whom I headed towards the elevator. As we waited, a biting silence could be felt. Suddenly he breathed in some air, as if to say something, but stopped with his mouth open, then closed it and shook his head. I still kept the file in my hands and looked at the photo of Adel intensely. He hasn't changed at all since the last time I had seen him.

"Come on, ask me. You'e dying to know." I said out of the blue slamming closed the file and raising my hazel eyes to look at him. "I can read it on your face."

The doors opened with a ding when the elevator arrived and we went in. Coulson hit the lowest number of the panel and the doors closed. There was no one but the two of us. He couldn't take it anymore, the curiosity was too much. "How did you get out of it alive? I mean, you've described them like you know them really well."

I laughed lightly. "Let's just say that when I was sixteen I had a relationship with Adel." In fact I have many more years than I show, thanks to my powers I still look like a teenage girl, while on papers I'm 20. Because of this, he was surprised, maybe shocked that such a thing had happened. I rolled my eyes. "Oh, don't make that expression. No one at that time told me how to live my private life, so I lived in my own way."

He nodded very slowly while being lost in his thoughts. "Just to satisfy another curiosity, what I never asked you the first time we took you in..." He thought of the 17-year-old girl who had murdered two people to save many children, who was scared like an animal without shelter from a storm. The girl he vowed to save and give home and love, he grew fond of he as if she was really his daughter. "How did they assign you missions, since you never met the people you worked for?"

_"But how it occurs to him that question after all these years?"_ I thought and played along my lie. "I think by courier. Dmitri had taught me to never stay in one place. At first I thought that it was him who found those jobs, but when he died, I found always out the door cases full of money, passports and information on the objectives. Once the missions were over, I returned to the hut and found another case, and so on, the same routine."

His voice came out low, almost like a whisper. "Until we found you."

"Yeah." I sighed out.

The lie which started this whole story is what keeps me safe. But safe from what? I honestly don't remember anymore how it is to tell the truth. It never really bothered me how HYDRA played the game, but I couldn't stop from feeling a sting in my chest every time I lied to Coulson. Something... Was different. _I_ was different.


	4. CODE NAME: KITSUNE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the night before Viktoria leaves for her mission with Clint and Natasha. Agent Coulson decides to pay a visit and have a 'family' dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how long has it been since I published the last chapter. I wanted to make this the mission chapter, but I just couldn't find the words to write it yet, instead, I came up with this! I hope you enjoy it and you get little hints of Viktoria's past, mostly were she lived before.
> 
> Maybe I forgot to say this, but her story follows the MCU storyline, which means that everything happens on specific years. When the story started she was 17yo, now that she is 20/21 it coincides with Iron Man 2, when the Black Widow goes on mission.
> 
> There's just one word that's not explained in the chapter, but I'll put it right here.
> 
> *An onsen is a term for hot springs in the Japanese language, though the term is often used to describe the bathing facilities and inns around the hot springs.

I've finished moving the furniture around the apartment and gave a quick look in each room to make sure that everything was in order. It's not the same apartment as SHIELD gave me a couple of years ago, though it's quite bigger this one. I've chosen white painting for all the rooms, black and white tiles for the two bathrooms and grey ones for the kitchen.  
When entering the front door, a long hallway bisects the rooms; Right at the very beginning of the hallway there is a hanger and, a little further on, a door leading to the bathroom. Always on the right side, farther from the bathroom door, an arch leads to the open living-dining room and the kitchen. In front of the arch, toughened glass sliding doors lead to the bedroom, in which there's also a private bathroom and a walk in closet.

In the original project, the design was completely different, but I managed to convince the owner of the building to let me modify it since I wanted to buy the apartment, not before offering a lot of money.

Sighing pleased by the result, I then nodded and looked at a clock hanging on the dining room wall, displaying almost seven o'clock. Opting for a quick shower before making some dinner sounded like a great idea, since I needed to mentally resume the Operation Cobra Dance.

_"I should've killed them back then..."_ I thought while stripping down in the bedroom and threw on the large bed my cellphone. "...Hope that nobody calls me, can't deal with people right now."

I went into the bathroom and opened the shower tap on cold water, I couldn't avoid it, I've always had it as a habit from when I lived in Russia in 1908... Back then I had no absolute desire to boil water and then wash myself. It was very different from Japan, where you could just go to the * _onsen_ , have a nice hot bath and then go back to your life.

After a while of standing under the freezing water, I heard the bell of the front door ringing and I quickly wrapped a white towel around my body. It got me on alert since no one still knew that I moved here, in a different part of New York. I didn't walk immediately to the hallway, but stood on the door frame of the bedroom and stretched my hearing, concentrating on the person on the other side of the front door. I heard his normal breathing and listening a little longer, I recognized his heartbeat. Smiling a little after he knocked, I finally went to open the door.

"How did you find me?" I asked in a both serious and joking voice.

"It's a father's job." He replied, smirking.

"Suuure..." More like a spying job. Noticing the paper bag full of groceries in his arms, I invited him in with a gesture of a hand. "Mi casa es su casa." (My house is your house.)

Coulson went straight for the kitchen and left the paper bag on the counter top, finally taking out the groceries. I stood by the hallway and looked at him, smiling a little and leaning against the wall. It was my first mission with a STRIKE TEAM and he came to make us some dinner before I left. It was strange, but a small feeling of joy made my heart beat faster, still I didn't know how'd he found me.

"So... Are you getting dressed?" He asked while washing the vegetables in the sink.

"Huh?" I glanced down and realized that I was dripping water around with only a towel on. "Yeah, yeah, right away."

He smiled and proceeded to dry the vegetables and then cut them while I went to my room to get dressed. Glossing the sliding doors behind me, I walked to the bathroom and hung the towel to dry, then opened the door to the walk in closet to take out some black undergarments, a pair of comfy grey trousers and a white shirt with a black SHIELD logo on the back. I didn't have many clothes since I used to give them to charity after a couple of months of using them.

After getting dressed I went back into the kitchen and smelled a great scent coming from the boiling pot on the stove.

Sitting on a stool by the counter I leaned on the top. "Hmm, smells great! Do you need help, paps?"

Coulson turned around and shook his head, drying his hands in a cloth he found around. "I thought that since you're leaving for a mission you should eat at least something good to keep you in shape!" He laughed and took off the red apron he was wearing.

Furrowing my brow, I tilted my head to the side and watched as he took off the red thing and put it down on the counter. "Wait, that's not mine, where did it come from?" Gesturing to the apron.

"Oh, I also got it for you so..." Just as he was to continue the doorbell rang and we exchanged looks. "Were you expecting someone?"

Shrugging and shaking lightly my head, I stood up and walked to the front door. This time two knocks were heard and I opened, revealing the Widow and the Hawk.

In unison, they said: "Surprise!" And smiled, Natasha widely.

Moving to let them in, Nat held high a small plastic bag. "I brought some ice cream, I hope Agent Coulson doesn't mind!"

"How did you know..? Never mind." They walked to the dining room and greeted him.

"Good thing I made for more." He said about the dinner. Meanwhile, he had already set the table and put the cutlery.

I laughed lightly and all of them turned to look at me. Waving my hand, I replied: "Oh, sorry, just laughing that you had Natasha look for my new apartment."

Coulson shrugged and put the rest of the food on the table, while Clint helped Nat getting out of her wet coat, apparently it was raining outside.

 

After dinner, Natasha put down the spoon and cleared her throat after drinking water from her glass. "Viktoria, there is something that we have to tell you."

The serious tone with which she said it startled me. There was something wrong, and I prepared myself for the worst, not being sure how to react. "I hope it's nothing I should worry about?" I asked.

She exchanged a glance with Clint and Coulson, then continued. "I'm not going on a mission with you two, I was assigned another."

I sighed slowly the breath I was holding and looked at the empty plate in front of me. Natasha took it as disappointment. When I saw her sad expression, I tried to cheer her up, because I knew she was very keen to go on a mission with us. "Never mind, it means that Clint and I are perfectly capable of doing a job for three in two!" I gave a small smile and she smiled back.

"Are we...?" He asked and I kicked one of his legs under the tables. "Aah, yes we are!" He corrected himself, earning laughs from both Coulson and Natasha.

Coulson cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Well, it seems that you beat me to it, Agent Romanoff." He said, looking at Natasha then at me, that gave him a look of surprise/disapproval. "Oh, come on, don't look at me like that, Viktoria." 

"That's why you came here and made dinner! If you wanted to say it, you should've done it right away..." I moved the chair I was sitting on and stood up, gathering the dirty plates.

Clint stood up too. "I'll help you washing them."

While Coulson and Natasha were cleaning the rest of the table and throwing away the small leftovers, they proceeded to serve some ice cream, Clint washed the plates and passed them to me, so I could dry each one with a cloth.

His voice came out low, as he wanted to not let the other two hear. "Hey, hun, I've got your back, always."

Putting down one of the dried plates, I bumped lightly my shoulder against his and smiled softly. "And I've got yours." A few minutes later I felt the urge to tell him that this mission was really a suicide one but I just couldn't, and it made my chest heavier. I promised myself that I'll take care of them, my friends... Yeah, the only ones I've had since childhood maybe? "Listen, Clint," I whispered to him, "whatever happens down there..."

"Yeah, I know, don't worry." He waved it off.

"No, seriously, whatever happens, promise me that you'll take care of yourself if things get bad." The seriousness of my words made his brows furrow and he couldn't take his questioning eyes off of me.

"What about you?" He asked.

"One thing I know for sure, when things get bad, I can get my ass out of any situation."

"What are you two whispering about?" Asked Natasha from the table while eating some ice cream.

We both turned around, looked at them, at us and again at them, hesitating, until Clint came up with an idea. "Well, we were just discussing about a code name, for her..."

Coulson raised his hand quickly and then put it down when all eyes fell on him. "Oh, I've got an idea." He paused creating suspense. "Agent Fox."

Nat shook her head. "No, no, how about Black Fox?"

Clint crossed his arms. "I think Fox Eye is perfect."

I laughed, because each one of them suggested something that reminded their title. "I've got it, guys. You know how I like ancient mythology and you are all agreeing on fox... God knows why..." They nodded silently. "Then it shall be Kitsune, japanese meaning of fox."

"Sounds great."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you liked it, comments and kudos are very appreciated! (:
> 
> So, what do you think happened to Viktoria to stay so young all these years?


	5. Who needs bow and arrows to kill a pig when you have butcher knives?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Viktoria arrived at the hideout, but the morning after there are some problems.
> 
> "[...] It's as if we've been sent to slaughter a pig without the butcher knife."
> 
> I chuckled after pulling out one of the knives piled into the hole and rolling it in my hands. "Oh, but we DO have the knife to chop the throat of a pig, plenty of them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit that I'm a lazy ass, meh...
> 
> Anyway, instead of publishing the entire chapter, I'm adding only 1/2(3?) of it. I've finished translating the first part and I'm still editing the second, yet to be translated. So, enjoy this one!
> 
> Leave a comment or a kudo (though comments would be some very helpful feedback)

I moved slightly under the sheet when the heat seemed to become unbearable, so I opened my eyes and watched the flat surroundings. A small room in disrepair in the slums of Cairo. No air conditioning or luxury furniture, not to mention on what Clint and I slept... Two old mattresses placed on the floor, dirty and dusted, with yellowed sheets. Of course, I didn't expect them to be made of silk, but at least I hoped that the equipment for the researches were decent.

The faint light that filtered down from the wooden planks on the small window woke me up completely. Still lying down on my back, I turned my head on the pillow to the right, to look at Clint, who was sleeping like a baby. I smiled tenderly at the view of my parter sleeping with his mouth slightly open, with a trickle of drool running down his chin. He was snoring slightly, as he held his arms spread upward, elbows bent; his legs were wide apart, with his feet over the edge of the mattress.

"Clint ..?" I asked quietly to see if I could wake him up.

Apparently it had not worked, because all he did was grunt. "Nhh..."

I tried again. "Clint, wake up." This time he made a little movement with his head and closed his mouth. Then I got up to a sitting position and shouted: "GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!"

Suddenly he jumped on the mattress, overturning and hitting the cold floor, wrapped in a sheet. "Shit, Viktoria! Now I'm awake!" He grunted outraged and ran the palm of his hand over his face.

I laughed with teary eyes after his reaction and then noticed that I had started to sweating from the unbearable heat, though he seemed fine with it. "Ugh, I hate this hot weather... The next time they send me on a mission, I hope it will be somewhere off to Siberia or Alaska."

He squirmed until he broke free from the sheet and laid back down on his mattress, his head resting on his left arm while looking at me. "And what would change from deadly hot to deadly cold?"

I thought for a moment and then turned to look at him. "Let's say I have a high resistance to cold and I do not really like the sun." I moved the blanket and slipped off the mattress, standing up and doing some stretching." Come on, Birdy, get up, we have to get to work. But FIRST, I'm taking a shower."

"Okay, I'll see if there's anything to eat in this hovel, otherwise I'll have to go out and buy something." He too got up, to go rummaging in his suitcase and find a pair of pants and a shirt, since he was shirtless and wearing only a pair of black boxers. Seeing him like that, I thought that he really was a handsome man, I wondered if he and Natasha...

"Then, if you're still not going, can wash my face?" He asked waking me up from my mental conversation.

"No, go ahead, in the meantime I'll look where to put our clothes from the suitcases." Oh, daydreaming about what he could do to me - if he had me pinned to any surface - costs me nothing. After all, it's been a little while since I've had my share of fun; it was with the man in charge of the main team STRIKE, Rumlow if I recall..? Oh well, go out for a drink, meet a colleague - if I were to be honest, he looks a lot older than me, but in the end I am the older one here - and how it happened that i took him to bed I have no idea, but I am grateful just for the fact that we no longer spoke after that.

"Hey, I'm leaving, see you later." Clint beckoned with his hand and then walked out the door.

Forgetting our clothes for a moment, I took a quick cold shower, trying to lower the temperature of my body, something I learned to do recently. It's not an immediate thing, but with a bit of training I will be able to adapt to any type of climate.

The shower was in a small room adjacent to the one where we were sleeping, the only two rooms in the small three-story building. I dried quickly and left the towel hanging in the bathroom, then went to dress myself, picking up a black tank top and wearing a pair of lace French knickers with white shorts. At last I felt like I could stand the African heat.

In the room where we slept, I looked around in search of a hiding place where the equipment we needed could've been. I used the pressure of the feet against the wooden planks of the floor to find the ones that creaked and when I found them, I bent down to try to remove them. I lifted one by one until it was open enough to pull out the computers and the tracking devices.

The best thing about the twenty-first century was certainly the technology because it made my job easier. Sure wasn't like in the early years of the foundation of HYDRA; I didn't need to spend weeks to track down some people, who back them seemed non-existent. Guess how long it took me to find the person who had the Tesseract for Schmidt, during the war...

I noticed that in the hiding under the floor were missing the weapons and the ammunition to support the mission, there were only two magazines that did not match with my gun and a pair of hunting knives. "What the..? Here we should've had a weapons depot that would've been enough to blow up the whole neighborhood?!" There was also a PC and a box for a satellite connection.

The front door creaked and Clint returned with two bags of food, hurrying to pack everything into the small refrigerator in the corner of the room. "Is there any problem?" He asked after he crouched next to me, while he glanced at the hole in the floor.

I frowned and scratched my chin. "Where are our weapons? Your bow and arrows, and my guns?" I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and then bend forward to take the two magazines. "From what I had read in the file, the location is the right one, but we don't have all the things that were listed..."

"Now that you mention it ..." he muttered imperceptibly and looked at the electronic equipment. "Here we lack headsets, night-vision goggles, decoding devices... It's as if we've been sent to slaughter a pig without the butcher knife."

I chuckled after pulling out one of the knives piled into the hole and rolling it in my hands. "Oh, but we DO have the knife to chop the throat of a pig, plenty of them." I left the magazines and the knife on the ground, picking up the PC and the box for the satellite connection, leaving them then on the table; I looked at the various walls for a power outlet and when I found it, I nodded to Clint to help me move the table from across the room. I unrolled the cables of the various devices and finally I went online with the satellite network, typing fast some codes to stay in the network as a 'ghost'.

"Stupid old model!" I cursed for a while, then continued typing, watching the screen.

"Who are you calling? I don't know if someone will respond as the time zone."

"Agent Hill was commissioned by Fury to provide support in case of problems, even if we can contact her as up to three times... We've been here less than a day and already we're missing everything we really need."

Hill finally replied to the video call. She had all her hair tousled and she couldn't keep her eyes open. "May I ask why you call me at this hour? I wasn't expecting to hear from you for at least a couple of days."

Clint, who was bent over my shoulder, pointed out at me and then gave me a pat on the back. "Explain it yourself."

"Our equipment, weapons... We have nothing in here." I explained in a few words. "It's already a lot if we have an old model of computer and some money to get us to eat."

She nodded slightly and took a pen along with a piece of paper, scribbling something. "All right then, you have to go to this address ..." She raised the sheet and I told Clint to write it down somewhere. "Ask for Seif Sabbag and claim to be friends of Selim Handal. He's an undercover agent who was on duty to stock up your base. If something occurred and he couldn't do it, now you should be able to solve your problem yourselves. Having said that, do NOT you dare call me if not in a few days, and maybe avoid doing so while here's the middle of night!"

She closed the connection without saying goodbye and Clint and I looked at each other, then let us escape a little laugh.

"All right, Kitty Cat, I'm making something for breakfast, but do not expect Michelin star stuff."

I inserted details for the research, browsing through websites of luxury hotels located around Cairo, rummaging through the room reservations and finding a couple of suites that the Cobra Triplets could book for the man they were protecting. Then I looked at surveillance points and at the points with a good escape route, hacking all cameras inside the various buildings and those outside. I wrote down everything in a notebook and continued with a cross-check, mentally analyzing the pros and cons of each hotel.

"Here's a five star sandwich." Clint said as he approached the table with two plates and two huge sandwiches, made perhaps with all the ingredients he had bought before. With a quick glance I saw something that resembled lettuce, tomatoes, chicken breast breaded and fried then put all together.

"You built the new Eiffel Towers," I joked when he passed me one of the plates, "thanks."

"How's it going? What's all this stuff about? I thought you were looking for our three little pigs." He asked me while he threw his eye between my notes and the PC screen.

"Have faith in my skills." I laughed amused as he took a big bite out of his sandwich. "While I was on the side of the bad guys, doing a job like they do now, I've learned a lot of tricks." I saw a flash of surprise in his eyes, but he waited for my next words. "If they end up using one of those methods, which I hope, we'll find them in the blink of an eye."

"Good thing I have you on my side." He said softly, his tone was still serious. I felt a sense of acceptance from him and it made my heart skip one beat. I haven't realized that I was staring at him with my lips parted till he said: "Eat. Then let's go get our weapons." Clint gave a little nudge to my plate making a nod towards it.

When I took the big sandwich he had prepared, I gave it a bit and let my mind wander in the silence of the room, the only sounds were our chewing and the voices of people in the street, who were proceeding with their lives under the hot sun while we were hidden from prying eyes.

I thought of my situation. For a moment I doubted my original mission: was it really necessary to get rid of SHIELD? I could not say for sure how many people were the faithful to it and how many of them were faithful to HYDRA.

I frowned at the thought and Clint noticed it, but remained silent, observing how I changed expression to every thought I had. No, I was loyal to HYDRA. Was I really loyal to them? I've always been a valuable resource since its creation, but then when Dr. Zola had developed its own version of the super serum, things had changed...

"What's on your mind?" I was shaken by the sudden question of Clint. I glanced up and looked uncertain, as if I hadn't heard that he was calling me. "You keep making strange faces."

I laughed softly when I realized that I had already finished eating. "No, no, I was analyzing the details of the mission, Hawkeye..."

He nodded, picking up dirty dishes and taking them away. "All right, Kitsune."

That code name ... I smirked. Is it just a coincidence that my code name back at HYDRA was Nogitsune?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you think? Is it interesting? :D I can't wait to publish the rest of the mission.
> 
> I made two playlists on 8tracks for this fanfiction, one named "Kitsune" (http://8tracks.com/alkaeva/kitsune-2) and one named "Nogitsune" (http://8tracks.com/alkaeva/nogitsune). I hope you'll listen to them, maybe like them too. I'll be making more playlists as the story proceeds.
> 
> Anyways, hope you liked this chapter :D
> 
>  
> 
> Please, take note that the names in this chapter and in the next ones are purely fictitional and generated randomly from an online generator. Any name of a living or dead person is purely unintentional.
> 
> Marvel characters belong to its owners but my OC and part of the plot.


	6. Where's our stuff?! ...Oh, there it is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Viktoria finally take their stuff, but not without a good fight, or so they thought ...and I'm bad at summaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeeyyyyy It's finally here! I've been writing this for days ahah I hope you like it, cause I've tried my best to finish this mission, but it'll take one more chapter (that I hope will be longer that this one) and then things will get a little new?? I guess..
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments and any errors that you may find, please signal them so I can edit them! :D
> 
> Enjoy!

The scorching heat of noon was unbearable, at least for Clint who had already sweated seven shirts in the true sense of the word. One of the tires of the jeep hit a hole in the middle of the road, making us jump into the car.

"Now I understand why Nat does not make you drive." I said softly, but Clint still heard me.

"What?! What do you mean, that I drive badly?" He furrowed his sweaty brow and turned the steering wheel to the left, continuing into a side street, narrow and full of people. "It's not my fault if the roads here are full of holes."

I raised my sunglasses to see from afar the address we were looking for, then I looked at the map in my lap. "You see the warehouse over there?"

He nodded, his sunglasses slipped a little on his nose and he rearranged them with a finger of the left hand that wasn't holding the steering wheel. "The one that's well guarded from those apes?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yep." After passing the warehouse and parking the jeep a little further down the street, we exchanged a look and got out, heading towards the entrance of the building.

The gorillas were well armed with rifles and two of them positioned themselves immediately at the door of the warehouse. Their eyes moved from Clint to me, making a small smile to each other, and then admired the skin of my bare legs because I was wearing a pair of denim shorts, cropped.

One of them turned to Clint, in Arabic, although I understood anyway. I was just hoping that Clint knew it too. "Is she your wife, the girl? Because if not, I want to marry her." Then the two laughed amused.

Clint did not flinch and went straight to the point, surprisingly he knew Arabic too, although his accent made it clear that he was American. "I'm looking for Seif Sabbag, sends me Selim Handal."

"Oh really... And what do you need from him? As if we're letting enter the first jerk who comes to the door." The second gorilla said with an unfriendly tone.

At that point I was already tired of playing with these two, so I stepped forward taking off my sunglasses and hanging them on the collar of my white shirt. They did not seem at all intimidated by the serious look that I had given them. I talked to themm in perfect Arabic. "We have work to do, or you get off of the way and let us go to our appointment with Seif Sabbag, or I will tear your balls and feed them to the hippos."

They stiffened, tightening their grip on their rifles, but still moved to the sides to get us through. "Usually I do not get frighten by a woman, but if you threaten my balls with that face, a really serious one, I must make an exception. Sabbag can be found in his office." Told us one of the gorillas.

"Thank you for your understanding." I gave a small smile to the two men that spoke to me and I nodded my head for Clint to follow me into the building.

We entered the warehouse and Clint came up to my left ear to whisper. "Out of curiosity, when did you learn Arabic?" He was stunned by my impeccable accent.

I looked around and noticed a wooden palafitte inside the warehouse with the stairs to the inside; that was the office. "I don't remember, maybe like a couple of years ago... Let's say I just know many languages, it's like a natural talent." For talent I meant my ability to learn languages in a short time that other human beings would not be capable of doing. But after all, I'm not exactly very 'human', and Clint just doesn't need know.

The warehouse was full of things, mostly wrapped and packed in big boxes, definitely weapons of various kinds, and also illegal. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door of the supposed office, until the door was opened by an Egyptian man, dressed mostly like any other person you would see on the street.

Clint took off his sunglasses and said in Arabic "Selim Handal sends me." making a small smile.

The man seemed to recognize immediately Clint, having seen him somewhere when he was in a base of SHIELD. He seemed petrified for an instant, then let us into his office and closed the door very carefully, making sure that no one would disturb.

Seif spun around to look at us, a little stunned by our visit and spoke quietly in English. "I know why you are here and I beg your pardon, but I couldn't stock your shelter for valid reasons." His dark eyes moved from us on the windows that looked out on the goods of the warehouse and ran to close the blinds, lighting a dim light of a lamp. The place was full of papers, cigarette butts and other trash.

"Oh yes?" Clint was resting against a wall looking the man straight in the eye. "I'm not interested in your reasons, we want our supplies."

Seif stammered almost incomprehensibly. "Well, indeed, there is a problem and I cannot do it..."

My arms, which until then kept folded across my chest, dropped to my sides and made small steps towards the agent. "You can't or you won't?"

"I cannot..!" He was interrupted when I was close enough to grab him by the throat with my right hand and, with a little pressure in the right places with my fingers, his breathing was blocked.

"Repeat it again cause I haven't heard you properly." The coldness with which I acted didn't startle Clint, who seemed rather amused remembering a previous mission with Natasha.

"Help!" He groaned looking at Barton from his peripheral vision.

The other one shrugged. "Ah, when she does like that I can't blame her."

The color of his face had already changed and when he realized I was doing it seriously, he tapped on my hand. "Okay- okay!" I let him go and he rubbed his throat, catching his breath. "My position was compromised the moment that you two have came at my door, dammit!"

"The goods," I prompted him to speak, "where are they?"

"Everything is packed and ready to be delivered, all that SHIELD has sent to you is in stock, in a van actually." He paused, not knowing whether to say something else, but he did anyway. "But I can't give you anything because I'm no longer in charge of this place. Someone has bought everything, all the goods, and if they find out that I'm not in charge, they'll shoot me." He referred to the gorillas who were stationed in front of the warehouse.

Clint and I both furrowed our brows and he pulled away from the wall and went to a blind, with two fingers separated the two blades of plastic and watched what was happening below. "Who did it?"

Seif swallowed painfully. "The ones you came for." Suddenly there was gunfire coming from an unknown direction and Seif's body fell to the ground, blood gushing from his right temple. An agent of SHIELD was down.

Clint and I took shelter from successive rounds of shots, which pierced the wooden walls of the office, behind a metal desk as a shield. We had nothing with us except the knives we had found back at our base.

"We're screwed before we even started!" Barton cursed, looking around to find a way out, but the only one was through the door through which we passed and the windows that looked into the warehouse.

At that moment my eyes fell on a flying sheet with the words 'CBVAC' and a registration number of a transport van. "Clint, look!" I grabbed in my hand the paper and passed it to him, so he could read.

"It's our stuff. Now we just have to find the van." He looked a little above the desk when the gunshots stopped. "Any idea on how to get out, maybe not involving us getting killed?"

I listened carefully to hear any voices in the distance, but the only thing I could hear were the cautious steps of someone who was closer and closer to the office door, then whispered the plan. "You can take them out on your own? I'll try to get to the van and steal it."

He shook his head. "No!" He whispered to himself. "This time it's up to you."

I sighed dramatically; each situation was great to act like a child for him. "All right, Birdy, jump on the wooden planks outside this office and you'll be able to get out on the roof." I pointed to the fastest way, he nodded and handed me one of the two knives he had, so I would've had one in each hand. "On my three..."

I did not have time to do the countdown that someone threw down the door. From that moment everything became frantic. Clint ran from behind the desk and jumped through a window, managing to hold on to a mobile hook hanging from the rafters. The man who came through the door pointed the gun behind Clint and before he could shoot, I came out from behind the desk and attacked him armed with two knives. With a quick and coordinated attack, I lowered his left hand so he fired at the floor and with the other hand cut his throat, then kicked him in the stomach throwing him down the stairs through the door.

I hear other voices shouting in Arabic, giving directions on chasing me, so I took a couple of steps back hitting the wall opposite the windows and made a sprint out of the office through the windows, a high jump before landing on some stuff below. There were other stray bullets that followed me, but I jumped between the packs and killed one by one the men who were firing at me. When there was too much silence, I stood behind a tower of boxes and listened to hear any noise. I noticed that these new steps were different, almost like they were crawling on the floor and then I concentrated on the pulse of the person. It was slow, as if all the commotion and bustle of a moment ago had not affected the person in the least. I knew immediately that it was one of the Cobra Gemini.

Damn it, I couldn't let him find out who I was. I looked around me and my eyes fell on one of the guards of the warehouse to whom I had broken the neck. I crouched next to him and took off quickly his clothes, wearing them over mine. I also took a scarf that another had around the neck and wrapped it over his head, being careful to secure it tightly on my face, to not let it loosen up.

I decided against taking a gun from one of the men because it would've been very difficult to try to hit him even after the teachings of Natasha, instead, I armed myself again with my knives and waited for the man to approach my direction. When he was close enough to where I was hiding, I rounded the corner and danced around trying to attack him, but he dodged each attack, flexible as a snake. I stopped, always in position with my arms raised and looked at him.

Eyes yellow like the sun, a snake tattooed under his chin and the body was set in attack mode. Adel. He didn't recognize me as my head was wrapped in the foulard only my hazel eyes showing. He tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at me with his predatory eyes. He watched how my feet were positioned, the left one was forward while the right slightly back, knees wide apart and bent far enough to snap on offense. He spoke in Arabic, his voice normal, almost did not give any importance to the dead men around us. "Who sent you?" It was all he asked.

Instead of answering, I swung the knives in both hands and jumped forward, attacking. He dodged a couple of times moving backward, left and right. Thanks to the trainings of Natasha, I was able to outline his movements and at that point I started to get serious, without exploiting my strength, as much as the agility of my body. Moments later deep cuts from my knives were left on the body of Adel, a lot of cuts from which blood flowed.

His forehead was sweaty, his breathing labored. He gritted his teeth in anger so hard that I thought they were about to break. "I understand," he sighed, "you are a serious one." He extended his arms forward, with his slender fingers closed in the shape of a snake head and bent his knees, preparing to fight back. "Get ready to suffer..!" Suddenly he charged at me but didn't have time to touch me as a large van went through one of the walls of the warehouse at full speed, hitting everything that was in front of its path. Adel was hit by tall and heavy package transported by the wave of other fallen packages, crushed like a fly while I was running in the opposite direction to avoid making the same end.

The van stopped and Clint came out the driver's window, sunglasses over his eyes and a smug smile. "Hope I haven't interrupted anything important."

I let out a breath I didn't know that I was holding back, my heart racing in my heaving chest. Damn archer, almost got me killed. "I'm doing fine, thanks. What took you so long?!"

"What took YOU so long?! I've been waiting outside for you." He spat back almost jokingly.

"Well, I was busy trying to stay alive." I muttered to myself, shaking my head lightly and took off the foulard, revealing my face. 

Clint shouted from the van before going back inside the window, "We have to leave, more are coming."

Before leaving I took a good look around in search of Adel's body and spotter his arm under a pile of heavy stuff, a pool of blood coming from his hidden body. One out of three was down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo did you like it?? I hope you did! Please leave comments for feedback, I don't bite ahah also kudos? ;*
> 
> I'll be sure to upload the next chapter soon (:


	7. Don't die in my arms tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally the night of the mission. I mean, what could go wrong..? Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: BLOOD IN THIS CHAPTER AND SOME SWEARING
> 
> I'm 'borrowing' Lyndsy Fonseca's face for my character cause they have pretty much the same traits. GIFs aren't mine, found on Google.
> 
> It might be sloppy in some part as I didn't edit it ahah But I hope you like it (:
> 
> Leave comments and kudos, please! Feedback makes me want to write more in short times

  


_  
My ears were whistling terribly. Fire lit up the night as the building behind me was burning down. My breath was cut short when I saw Clint's lifeless body in front of me. I spoke to him, telling him to wake up, but I still couldn't hear my voice as the explosions had ruined my hearing. I checked his pulse in search of the beat but felt nothing. Terror was taking me over and I kept hoping that he wasn't dead._

_I positioned myself on top of him and placed my hands in the middle of his chest, one above the other, then I pushed down pumping hard and fast a couple of times before tilting his head back and lifting the chin. I pinched his nose and covered his mouth with mine and blew until I've seen the chest rise, then back again pumping his chest repeating the same actions a couple of time, but he still didn't breathe...  
_

 

"Viktoria, remember the plan?" Clint asked as he put on his gear, preparing to take out the enemies.

"Why, you need a re-brief?" I chuckled hitting the magazine with the palm of my hand to place it into the gun, then holstered it. "Don't worry, Birdy, everything's going to be just fine."

He put the comm into his right ear and smirked. "You know, every time you say that something goes wrong."

"That's because you never follow the plan." I checked the connection and activated out comms, securing the communicating channel. "It's not my fault if there tend to be complications, such as people shooting at us."

Some weeks ago when we managed to retrieve our equipments, we had to move to another shelter because the one we were staying into wasn't safe anymore. With one of the triplets down, they had all their henchmen look for us.

Tonight was the night. Enter the hotel and take out the remaining twins, then interrupt the meeting of the Egyptian Mafia bosses. Fury didn't exactly say 'kill them', but to me 'destroy them' was the same.

I sighed, my eyes not being able to concentrate on the maps in front of me. "Clint, I know you're used to work with Nat, but I have to ask you something."

He stopped filling the quiver with arrows and looked at me. "Shoot it."

"Would it bother you if I kill the Circle of Evil?" I deadpanned.

He stood still for a moment, thinking. "Didn't Fury say 'collect more information and then destroy the Circle of Evil', or something like that?"

"Just like that." I nodded.

"Then no, I don't mind."

"Good."

 

Since we sneaked into the hotel, the situation escalated quickly. Clint managed to separate the twins from their boss and draw them away, while I still needed to get past the guards and enter the meeting room.

Clint found himself cornered by the twins and had to put them down, put it wasn't easy as it seemed, even with the tips I gave him. Using his bow and arrows wasn't going to take them out if not hand to hand combat. They launched onto him at the same time and he dodged as quickly as he could but they were faster.

The woman was very fast, managing to unbalance Clint a couple of times, resulting in her brother hitting the arched harder each time.

Clint stumbled backwards and straightened his back, licking a few drops of blood from his broken bottom lip. "Is that all what you've got?" He said sarcastically. "I thought you were tougher."

"Who sends you?" Asked the woman, Oseye.

"You're ex-boyfriend." Spat Cling, reading himself again for the next attack, only that this time he gripped in his hands from their holsters two knives. 

Louai the muscled gorilla, as Clint called him in his head, ran towards him. "You kill our brother!" He yelled blinded by his anger.

The archer saw a chance and took it, as Louai charged with a punch to Clint's nose, the man dodged and dragged the knife in his left hand from the bottom of Louai's chest to his throat, cutting deep into his flesh.

The man fell down bleeding out and the woman screamed, then attacked Clint. She kicked him in the stomach and punched him in the face. He fell down on his back and she straddled Clint trying to strangle him. He rolled them both that he was above her and gave her a hard punch in the face, knocking her out.

Clint moved from her body and picked up his bow from the ground, when he suddenly took one arrow from the quiver and shoot it behind him, hitting Oseye right in the heart. She had picked up in her hand one of the knives that he had dropped and tried to hit him, but this time he was faster.

 

I was crawling in the vents, finally standing above the meeting room. I peered through the grid and saw nine men sitting around a round table, talking in Arabic about new plans for the illegal traffics.

 _"The twins are down."_ Clint voice reached my ear through the comm.

I didn't waste anymore time and burst through the grid, falling onto the round table and took out the guns with the silencers on, shooting one by one the nine men except one, the boss that the twins were protecting.

He didn't look afraid at all. His arms were in front of him, resting on the table. "If you shoot me, this whole place will blow up." He said in Arabic, a smile of victory on his face.

"I don't buy it." I replied casually.

"If my heart stops beating, the pacemaker in me will send a signal to the many bombs that my men carry around in their briefcases." That looked threatening.

I holstered one gun and reached my comm to speak to Clint. "Hey Hawkeye, where you at?"

 _"Right outside the door."_ From outside came the groans of the men that were guarding the door, followed by him entering the room. "You missed me?" He asked.

"You're Americans." The man that should've been dead by now said in his language. Then I caught on that he didn't speak English.

"Kitsune, what's wrong?" The archer asked after a glance around.

My eyes were glued on the man and the gun in my left hand was still pointed at him. "He says that if I kill him the whole place will blow up. Have you seen any guard with briefcases walking around?"

"Yeah, a couple. Even the two here..." He motioned behind him, before turning round to take a briefcase that one of the men had with him. He took it and placed it onto the table. "Can't you jump down the table, it's scary to see you taller than me."

I did as he said and jumped down, not moving the gun from the direction of the man. "It's not the time to bitch around, just open it."

Clint opened the briefcase and found inside what he hoped were just papers. "Bomb." It was a small device, but it showed the signal coming from the pacemaker. A small tablet next to it showed a list of all the over 'devices' connected. "What do we do?"

"You leave, now." I told Clint, who frowned.

"This wasn't the plan." He looked at me placing a hand on my shoulder. "We should bring him with us, than."

I shook my head, holstering my gun. "These are not just regular bomb, Hawk. The signal that comes from his pacemaker will activate the bombs as soon as he's out of the Hotel, which means not only that we will be hit by the blow, but also that any innocent that's in this building will die."

"Yeah..." He nodded. "Besides, there are guards on each floor and in the main hall, we won't be unnoticed if we bring him with us."

"That's why you need to leave. I'll take care of this." I didn't want to argue with him because we didn't have much time.

"No..." He was about to say something when the radio transmitter on the knocked out guys went on, someone asking for a report on the situation.

The man that had been silent till now started laughing. "Start running." He yelled, before grabbing a pen and shoving it into his neck, blood spurting everywhere.

Our eyes went wide and as soon as we saw the man dying in front of us, we took out our weapons. I shot the glass to break it and Clint tied the rope to the leg of the table and shot the other end tied to an arrow on a rooftop of a building adjacent to the hotel. I went first on the zip-line using his belt and he followed me using his bow to slide down the rope.

We had almost reached the building when the first bomb went off and the rope broke in the explosion. Though our feet touched the roof, the following explosions were so strong that sent us flying almost over the edge of the building. As the hotel started crumbling down, the building we were on, shook tremendously, it's foundations collapsing beneath our bodies and we fell a couple of floors down.

 

 

As soon as I came to my senses I didn't feel pain, even though I couldn't feel my body since it was paralyzed, then realized that my back was broken. The healing process had already kicked in and I tried to focus my power into healing faster.

Slowly, pain flowed in my entire body as bones were reconnected and blood stopped coming out of my wounds. Little gasps escaped my lips and some tears streamed down my bloody cheeks, my lungs burning from the dust.

I opened my eyes and saw the night sky colored in red and orange, flames climbing high with dark smoke.

 _"Clint,"_ I thought, _"I need to find him."_

My bones healed after a while and I saved the rest of my powers to lift up the heavy part of a wall that had me pinned to the ground. No longer paralyzed, I raised my arms and pushed with all my might, straining my muscles to their limit and threw to the side the cemented wall.

More dust entered my lungs and I coughed spitting blood. A broken rib must've made a hole into one of my lungs. Not completely healed yet, I rose from the dirty ground and stumbled around, looking for Clint. There were debris everywhere and my hazel eyes were clouded by smoke, but I found him right away.

He was laying on his belly, right cheek against the cold ground. I crouched next to him and turned him on his back, but he didn't move at all.

My ears were whistling terribly. Fire lit up the night as the building behind me was burning down. My breath was cut short when I saw Clint's lifeless body in front of me. I spoke to him, telling him to wake up, but I still couldn't hear my voice as the explosions had ruined my hearing. I checked his pulse in search of the beat but felt nothing. Terror was taking me over and I kept hoping that he wasn't dead. 

I positioned myself on top of him and placed my hands in the middle of his chest, one above the other, then I pushed down pumping hard and fast a couple of times before tilting his head back and lifting the chin. I pinched his nose and covered his mouth with mine and blew until I've seen the chest rise, then back again pumping his chest repeating the same actions a couple of time, but he still didn't breathe... 

I started hearing again, very low, but it was just my voice calling him. "Wake up, you stupid son of a bitch!" I kept pumping his chest and blowing air into his lungs. "I didn't come all this way to see you die! What am I going to tell Natasha?! I'm sorry I killed your best friend?! NO WAY!"

My hands lit up lightly and a wave of energy was shot into his chest, Clint's heart suddenly beating again. His eyes opened widely, his lungs taking in all the air that he needed and tears welled up in my eyes.

"You stupid asshole!" I yelled, hugging him and burying my face in the crook of his neck. "Don't do that ever again!" I cried in his arms, for the first time not being afraid to show that I actually care about someone.

"What did I miss?" His voice was barely audible, but his sarcasm was strong with a smile plastered on his face.

Fortunately he was okay, nothing broken except for two ribs and some visible cuts on his body. Not like the ones that I had reported and healed immediately. Other cuts on my body took their time to heal, though he didn't notice.

 

We hopped back to our base and requested extraction with medical help and in a few hours SHIELD came to pick us up.

Agent Coulson was on board of the Quinjet with other agent that helped us with first aid. They had Clint on a barrel to tend to his wounds and I just stood on my feet, looking all dirty with spots of blood here and there. I was left without energy after saving Clint's life that my external wounds weren't healing as the internal ones.

Coulson had a small smile on his face, worried, but still a smile. "We need someone to tend to your wounds, Agent Alkaeva..." He said turning his head to ask someone to help me, but was surprised when I just hugged him, my arms snaking around his neck.

He returned the hug after a short while, me chuckling. "I know I'm all dirty and I'm staining your tuxedo, but can we stay like this for just a moment?" I was very tired and just missed my adoptive father, for the very first time I had a family and the only person that should've been there was Natasha.

"I missed you too, Viktoria." Phil said, patting my back and then let me go. "The doctor will tend to your wounds and then you can relax for a while."

"Okay." A man came next to me and asked me to sit down so he could take care of me.

"How's Barton?" I asked the doctor, though I could see him laying on a barrel, doctors patching him up.

"I'm fine... Ouch!" I heard him reply and laughed. "You shouldn't be laughing, I'm all hurting over here."

"You scared me back there, I'm more than allowed to have a laugh right now." I shook my head and winced when the doctor started sewing a deep gash on my forearm.

"I'm sorry." The man apologized.

"No problem." I relaxed my hurting muscles and the pain lowered a bit.

The agent piloting the Quinjet announced to Coulson that the arrival time was in less than an hour and both Clint and I furrowed our brows.

"We are we headed to?" Asked Hawkeye, something seemed off.

Coulson hesitated before answering. "Black Widow asked for immediate extraction."

"What?! What happened?!" I gasped. Natasha was in danger.

"We don't know yet. But she needs medical assistance." He said. "In fact, we were going towards her position when you called, but you were closer."

My heart raced when the thought that something bad might have happened to her crossed my mind, I had to calm myself when my eyes found Clint's and we hoped that she was fine.

  



	8. A Ghost from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end was a bit longer but the risk of writing with my phone is that it can, god knows how, delete what I was writing. Now, I know that I'm too lazy to rewrite it, but I'll make sure to put it in the next chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after finishing The Winter Soldier and the Arctic Fox, I can continue with this fanfiction. I know where I'm going with this, I just didn't expect it'd take this long! Anyway, I hope you enjoy, leave comments and kudos please, so I know if you like it (:
> 
> Next chapter coming soon!

The pilot of the Quinjet was focused on the landing, while the other pilot called for Coulson. "Sir, we're above the extraction point."

Coulson patted the man's shoulder and told the doctors to prepare to tend to Agent Romanoff's wounds.

I couldn't keep my eyes open so I fell asleep on a barrel in the left wing of the plane. Clint had strict orders to not move from his place, he was awake but he too was falling asleep from his painkillers. He was worried as hell for Nat and hoped she didn't have serious injuries as him.

Two minutes after the Quinjet landed, Natasha was taken on board, laid down on a barrel and a doctor took care of her wound.

She was trying not to show it, but the sweat on her forehead and the furrowed brow signaled her pain. She had lifted her shirt revealing a blood-stained gauze and under it a bullet wound.

"Agent Romanoff, what happened?" Coulson asked the redhead after he saw the wound.

He breath was shaking, but she managed to speak. "I was escorting the engineer out of Iran," she whimpered, "but someone shoot at our tires near Odessa, we lost control and went over a cliff. I managed to pull us out but..." She paused, hanging on a thought. "The shooter was there. I was covering the engineer and he shot him straight through me."

Coulson nodded, a small crease between his brows. "Did you see the shooter?" He asked.

She almost hesitated. "The Winter Soldier." She breathed out.

The was a terrible silence filling the Quinjet and I shot my eyes open as soon as I heard that name leave her mouth. Coulson nodded again then went to sit down in one of the chairs. As soon as the doctor finished sewing Natasha's wound, I slowly sat up from my barrel, my head spinning around. The massive energy that I used to heal my bones left me empty, with some other injuries that weren't healing at all.

My feet touched the ground and I made my way to her. The doctor helped her turn to the right side so he could tend the back wound too. When she saw me, she gave me a faint smile.

"You look terrible..." She chuckled, feeling pain as the doctor cleaned her wound.

"You too..." I replied, crouching next to her, so our faces were close. "Haven't you seen Clint yet? He's got some broken ribs and scratches." I moved her red locks out of her face and gently brushed my fingers through her hair. My eyes welled up and she furrowed her brow.

"Hey, Viktoria, what's wrong?" She asked me softly.

I whispered, so that only she could hear me. "For a moment back there, I thought I lost him..." A few tears slipped down my dirty cheeks and with her fingers she dried them. "He wasn't breathing."

"But he's okay now, don't worry, it's not the first time he hurt himself." She tried to reassure me but I shook my head.

"It's not just him, I though you too..." I couldn't finish the line as my words caught up in my throat. "You're like a family to me, and I can't bear to lose any of you."

She nodded. "I promise you won't..." We entwined our fingers and I leaned my forehead against the frame of the barrel, sobbing lightly.

Coulson heard part of our speech and when he made eye contact with Agent Romanoff, he knew that the girl he took in as his own cared about the people in her life. He did believe for some time that her joy was just an act, that being raised by a criminal took away my feelings, but seeing me now, sad and broken, meant that I truly considered the three of them as a family.

 

The weather was pretty warm outside with an orange afternoon light. I was back in my apartment in New York, sitting on the couch and wrapped in a blanket, just finished filling in the mission report. Everything was silent, the tv was turned off and the phone was on vibrate. Shield gave me some time off to recover properly, just as Clint and Nat were too. I was happy that they were doing fine now, but I couldn't stop thinking about what Nat said on the Quinjet to Coulson.

It's been a while since they took _him_ out of Cryofreeze, the last time was probably in 1991... The 'why' is important, Hydra needed the nuclear scientist to die and that's what they did. I thought for a moment, they knew Natasha was ecorting the engineer, so the mission couldn't have been done by a normal Hydra agent, they needed the Winter Soldier's skills. _Fast, silent and efficient._

I was brought out of my thoughts when the doorbell rang, so I moved aside the blanket and stood up from the couch, walking to the front door. I turned the handle and opened the door to reveal Coulson standing in the hallway with a bag of Japanese takeaway food.

"Hungry?" He asked with a smile on his face.

"Starving, actually." I replied laughing.

After dinner I collected the empty cartoon containers and threw them in the trash can, washing the plates. Coulson was sitting at the table, reading my report. He read out aloud a part, then looked up at me. "Agent Barton's heart stopped beating, probably from the shock caused by his injuries following the building's collapse, so I used CPR to revive him."

I dried my hands with a cloth by the sink, then turned around to look at him, returning the cloth in it's previous place. I sighed crossing my arms. "I thought..." I paused looking anywhere else but at Coulson. "For a moment, I thought that he wasn't gonna make it..." My head was slightly turned to the right and I locked eyes with Coulson for a couple of seconds.

He had a sympathetic look in his eyes with his forehead creased. He closed the report and put it back down on the table. "You know," he stood up then came closer to me, "if you need someone to talk to, about anything that troubles you, Shield has good therapists."

I chuckled. "I don't need a therapist, I can vent to my mirror and in the shower. Actually, my shower appreciates my singing skills." He smiled lightly and opened his arms to give me a hug, I moved closer and hugged him back. "I know we never spoke about it but..." I leaned back on the counter when we broke the hug and looked him in the eyes. "Can I still call you _dad_?"

"I always wanted a daughter so, yeah. I have to bring in your report now." Coulson said while taking the report in his hands. 

"And after that?" I asked him, teasingly. "A couple of days ago you said there was a concert in town, cello, was it?"

He smiled, his heart beating a little faster. " _Audrey_." He said.

"Yeah, tell her I can't wait for her to become my mom." I joked and he made a thumbs up, leaving me alone in my apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think next time I'll make a time-lapse and jump onto the intro of a new character (actually, he's pretty old..).
> 
> As always, the gifs were found on Google.


	9. Lord of the Frozen Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's quite a huge time-gap after the start of this chapter, basically, it's that time when Cap wakes up and boom, it's the future lol what am I doing to these characters?? Idk, but I hope you like it, I tried to put in some humor :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God bless my tempestive saving of multiple copies of this chapter, cause for a second there I thought I had lost an entire chapter.
> 
> I know it has been such a very long time since I updated this fanfic, but I really have no excuse, life struck me in general. I was thinking about going back to the previous chapters and edit a bit here and there, we'll see ^_^

Coulson entered the Shield base carrying the Operation Cobra Dance report in his hands. He nodded to some agents on his path and took the elevator to Fury's office. When the elevator arrived at the desired floor, he was greeted by a smiling secretary, who told him that the Director was waiting for him.

Coulson thanked the lady and walked towards Fury's office, knocking three times on the door, then entered. "Director." He greeted the other man, who was standing by the window looking at the setting sun, not that it could be seen between all those buildings. "Agent Alkaeva's mission report." Coulson said raising the dossier in his hands, then walked to a desk and left it there.

Fury was looking outside, seriousness all over his features, hands folded behind his back. He was so focused on his thoughts that neither the birds flying outside could distract him.

Coulson cleared his voice, looking at the other man's back. "Sir, about the Avengers Initiative..."

Fury interrupted. "I want to include Alkaeva." He turned around and looked at Coulson. "For now it's just a gut decision, but..." He paused, not moving his good eye from Coulson.

"We'll see how it goes." Finished Coulson and headed for the door, leaving the Director to his thoughts.

* * *

_"I mean, can you believe that after the appearance of the God of Thunder, the Sentinel of Liberty is alive?!"_ Coulson wasn't holding back his excitement as he spoke to me through the phone.

"Hold your fire, dad, we don't actually know if _he is_ , in fact, _alive_." I could not believe it myself. Captain America was alive... Kind of. He has been frozen like a piece of meat for decades, his body perfectly intact. There was a pause on the other side of the line. "Are you still there?" I asked Phil.

 _"They're defrosting him right now."_ I could hear the click of a camera going off.

"Are you taking pictures?" I asked him, biting my bottom lip. I didn't really know why, but I was excited too.

 _"No..."_ Coulson lied.

"Admit that that picture is for your private collection." I chuckled.

 _"Don't tell anyone."_ He whispered. _"Listen, I have to go now. I'll call you later."_

"Don't drool to much. Bye." I hung up the phone and laughed to myself, still having a hard time believing that Captain America was alive.

 

_A few days later_

Steve Rogers' body was moved to the Shield facility in New York and he could come to consciousness at any moment now. He's body was preserved by the ice in perfect conditions, no external nor internal damage. The scientists guessed it was thanks to the Super Soldier Serum. 

I was concerned, though, for how they planned to give him the news that he had spent all his life under the ice, and when I learned that Director Fury had planned to 'soften' his waking, I tried to persuade him to do something less traumatizing, if that was even possible. "Excuse me, sir, but I'm not really sure that 'recreating' an old style scene will help him when he wakes up." No, really, I think that it's the worst way to wake up a man that has been sleeping for, what, seventy years maybe?

Director Fury kept a quick and steady pace, walking down the halls of the base, while I was just trying to change his mind.

"Agent Alkaeva, tell me again why did I ask for your opinion?" Fury questioned, though it sounded more like a rhetorical one.

But still, he wanted an answer, to which I just sighed and rolled my eyes. He turned a corner and I followed beside him. "You didn't, actually..."

"Exactly." That was his conclusive answer, but the more he rejected to listen to me, the more I tried to talk to him about the matter.

"Fine, maybe I'm not a psychologist or whatever, but I now for sure that things won't turn out as you plan them to go." While I spoke and gestured lightly with my hands, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and death glared me.

"Agent Alkaeva, if you're trying to talk me out of it, now that it's too late." After what he said, he resumed walking, annoyed.

Quickening my pace to catch his, I started blurting out one question after another. "What? Like, it's happening right now? Who did you put in charge of his wakening? That woman, the one you've been talking about? She's not qualified!" My irritation was brought over the edge after all the alarms in the building were triggered and a female voice came out of the speakers.

_"To all agents, this is a CODE 13."_

Both Director Fury and I looked at each other then had the same reaction, running towards the elevator. As the doors closed, I panted: "Say it."

He eyed me and shook his head. "The hell I ain't."

I knew he didn't want to admit it, but I was right, so I just grinned lightly knowing that he was mentally cursing the current mess. I could feel the tension from each agent in the main hall as the numbers on the panel of the elevator decreased and, when we reached the lowest floor, it seemed like all hell got loose.

Agents were scattered around and some of them were lying on the floor while others offered assistance. One man approached us with a very terrified look on his face.

"Report." Director Fury commanded the agent, placing his hands on his hips.

It seemed like he didn't know where to start from, so he just spoke quickly, tripping on his words. "The man... He knocked down some agents and escaped the building!"

Fury nodded and gave another order, as he started walking towards the exit of the facility. "Tell all man to calm down and then locate him. Me and Agent Alkaeva will proceed to get him back, by then, make sure there is a squad to assist us if he doesn't cooperate." The agent nodded, then run off to do as he was said.

Since things were getting pretty serious, I tied my long brown hair in a ponytail then reached for an earpiece in the pocket of my jacket, and wore it right away on my left ear. "The cars are already outside, sir. Also, it seems Rogers is on the way to Times Square."

Fury got in the passenger seat of a black S.H.I.E.L.D. SUV parked outside, while I took the driver's seat and started the engine, driving off to Times Square. The rain wasn't helping much because it ended up in making always more traffic.

"Damn, that man sure runs fast." The boss commented.

"You know you can say his name, right?" Damn if there was a lot of traffic on the streets. "Though, Agent Coulson can't stop talking about Captain America... I can already imagine his reaction when he sees him awake and breathing." I chuckled. "Last time I heard him, he was totally fanboying."

When I turned to look at Fury, while waiting for the traffic to move, the little smirk I had disappeared as I saw his expression, the one saying 'are you fucking kidding me? You better stop right there'.

"Alright..." As soon as there was a clear path, I started driving again and then clicked a button on my earpiece, speaking to someone at the base. "Here's Agent Alkaeva. Any updates?"

The male voice that answered back was the one of the agent that Fury and I met, back at the hall. _"The target almost got to Times Square and you're one minute away from him. The backup squad is ready to intervene if you need it."_

"Copy that." I ended the transmission and spoke to Fury. "What's done it's done, you're old enough to know what to do now, sir, but let me tell you something: using more polite manners will do it's job to calm down the soldier."

I could drive him mad sometimes with my attitude, but I couldn't care less. If I had something to say, there were no 'what if he doesn't like what I say'. He actually liked me for that, for him that was also part of what made me a 'good agent', but he made sure that no one else spoke to him that way.

"Alkaeva, would you mind doing the speech?" He asked sarcastically, but already knew the answer. After I shook my head, he nodded and replied: "Thought so."

"Oh well, I'll just tell the agents to keep away the crowd as you have your little speech with the soldier." Giving a quick look in front of me, I saw the other Shield SUVs and all of them made a circle around Steve Rogers, who was looking very confused, wearing an old S.S.R. grey t-shirt, a pair of yellow trousers and black shoes.

Fury got out of the car and started speaking calmly to him, while I told the other agents to keep away the crowd and helped them. "Please, everyone, keep walking, there's nothing to look here."

Rogers followed Director Fury to our SUV and signaled for me to get back into the drivers seat, leaving the other agents to their duties.

 

When we got back to the base things kind of cooled down, the soldier from the past still looked disoriented, staring blankly into space with a cup of tea in both hands. His features were emotionless even though I could sense that his jawline kept tensing up and then relaxing again, as if everything around him didn't feel realistic, that he was still dreaming, but now that dream had become a nightmare. He was sitting on a chair by the desk in Fury's office, leaning lightly forward, his elbows on his knees.

 _"Fury should've been back by now..._ I thought while checking the time on my phone. 

I used that time to take in the Captain's appearance. He had his blonde hair cut in a typical 40's style, very short from the bottom and at the top a bit longer, with his bangs going from side to side; a pair of piercing blue eyes that could make any woman falter, but not me... Sure, he had my full curiosity but that was it. His whole body screamed 'these-are-powerful-muscles' with each slight movement he made. I was convinced that if he asked Phil to marry him, he'd say yes right away.

"What year again, ma'am?" Rogers suddenly asked, still looking nowhere in particular, just to raise his head at me with a questioning look a few moments after.

Oh God, did I falter when his blue eyes locked with my hazel ones, making my legs weak and cutting my breath short. 

"Are you ok, ma'am?" He asked again, this time unfreezing me from the state of admiration.

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Rogers, I spaced out." I excused myself and he nodded lightly. "Oh! Yeah, the years, right..." Trying not to sound that much nervous as I actually was, must've been damn hard, because I was failing miserably. "It's 2011. Well, 2012 in a couple of months." Taking in a deep breath to calm down helped me from making myself look like some kind of fangirl in front of the real Captain America. I was so close to him once, but never actually saw him during the war. Coulson and his vintage Captain America collection of comics and trading cards probably were the main reason that made me feel this strange way..? Oh no, I'm not giving this man a single chance to make my mind change course from it's original mission.

"This makes me a 94 years old man, I guess..." He whispered out, drawing my attention.

I knew how he felt in that moment, even if for me was a lot different, because I got to see all the passing years and didn't spend them frozen like a piece of meat in the refrigerator. Still, the feeling of being out of time hit like a brick for each missed occasion, each missed year.

"If it makes you feel better, you got a second chance, something that you deserve." I spoke to him with a calming and soothing voice, approaching him slowly and standing next to where he was sitting, I placed lightly the palm of my right hand on his muscular left shoulder to give him a bit of comfort.

"Thank you, ma'am." He let a smile slip on his lips, still looking in front of him.

I moved a second chair that was on the other side of the room and placed it by the desk, close to him, then took a seat. "I don't know how things were back in the New York of the forties," Steve raised his eyes to look at me, "but you can call me Viktoria if you prefer."

Steve paused for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing for a moment, the sound of that name reminding him of an old memory.

_"Viktoria... Her name's Viktoria."_

_Steve took his glass in his hands and nodded to Bucky to do the same, then he made a toast between them. "To Viktoria, who stole my friend's heart..."_

Steve then smile genuinely at me. "Nice to meet you, Viktoria."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's memory comes from [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5382290/chapters/13059337) of The Winter Soldier and The Arctic Fox, the first FF of this series.


	10. Fury's Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, if you watched Agents of Shield, you'd now that there is a safehouse for people with powers, where Steve spent some months before going back to New York, and I wanted to include a small part here, before starting a new fanfic, a continuation of this one. I'm not sure why, but I've decided to make all of these just 10 chapter stories. I feel as if continuing will make me go off trail.
> 
>  
> 
> This is very short, but there will be a new one to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read about [Fury's Cabin](http://www.seeing-stars.com/Locations/SHIELD/FurysCabin.shtml) by clicking the link on the name.

There I was, at Fury's cabin, where Steve had spent a few months after he woke up from the freezing ice cube that he used to be. I walked to the front wooden door and knocked lightly three times. It wasn't long before Steve came and opened the door, remaining quite surprised at seeing me.

He smiled automatically, even though it wasn't really a happy one. "Agent Alkaeva, it's nice to see you, ma'am."

I nodded lightly and smiled back. "Captain Rogers."

"Please, come in." He moved aside to let me into the cabin and I slipped in past him, then he closed the door.

I looked around quickly, noticing that the place was kept tidy and in order, with just a copybook and a pen on the kitchen table. "How are you?" I asked him, turning around to face him, he was still standing by the door, trying to figure out why I was there.

"I'm good, thank you. And how are you?" He walked to the couch and made a gesture for me to sit, to which I nodded a thanks, but decided not to sit down. He was maybe a little too polite for my likings, but still a nice gentleman.

"I'm doing fine." I replied with a smile. "I'm here to bring you back to New York, if you're okay with it." I said lightly.

He rested his elbows on his knees, eyes closing as a short sigh left his lips. He entwined his fingers, leaning his chin on his hands and thought for a moment. He must've been feeling very nervous. "Director's orders?" He asked looking at me.

I nodded. "Director's orders." Something went through my mind in that moment, which was about a completely different thing. "Oh, I've got a favor to ask you."

Steve tilted his head in confusion but then cleared his throat. "Yes?"

I giggled before speaking, my right hand in front of my mouth shyly then, with my fingers I moved back a loose strand of brown hair behind my ear. "Can you sign my father's vintage set of trading cards?" He seemed to not understand it. "Captain America cards. Took him a couple of years to collect them, so it'd make him hella-happy if you could do that."

"Do you have them with you?" He asked me, standing up, but I shook my head while crossing my arms over my chest.

"Nope, he doesn't even let me touch them, but I'm pretty sure he carries them around all the time, so he'll ask you too when you meet. His name is Phil Coulson." I saw him narrowing his eyes, catching on his thoughts. "Oh, you probably heard of him, Agent Coulson, but they call me Alkaeva to distinguish us."

Steve nodded with a soft smile. "I'll be sure to sign them if he asks."

"Great, thanks." I smiled cheerful with wide teeth.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Attention beuties!** I've created a sideblog on Tumblr dedicated to your questions and updates, so it's easier to communicate (: You can find it here -- > [_VictoryanBladeFair_](http://victoryanbladefair.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> Part 3 of this series is out! Dulce Bellum Inexpertis

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Winter Soldier and The Arctic Fox](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5382290) by [VictoryanBladeFair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoryanBladeFair/pseuds/VictoryanBladeFair)




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